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80. Contemporary Attitudes | Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein (Universalism & Particularism #5) · The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

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Speaker 1: Greetings, friends, and welcome back to the Podcast of Jewish Ideas,
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Speaker 1: a Terror in motion production. I'm jj Kimpig. Here on
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Speaker 1: the Podcast of Jewish Ideas. We are currently running a
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Speaker 1: multi part series on the thorning and intriguing issue of
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Speaker 1: Judaism and universalism. In pursuit of enlightenment and insights on
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Speaker 1: this topic, we will be journeying through the full sweep
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Speaker 1: of Jewish intellectual history from the Bible down to our
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Speaker 1: own day, inviting our AREU digests to reflect on the
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Speaker 1: many questions that are brought to the four in these discussions.
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Speaker 1: Today's episode is the final installment in our series in
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Speaker 1: which we'll be studying the phenomenon of Jewish universalism in
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Speaker 1: our own historical period. In particular, we will be paying
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Speaker 1: attention to important intellectual developments of recent decades and perhaps
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Speaker 1: two of the most important Orthodox universalist thinkers whose theological
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Speaker 1: and philosophical writings have enjoyed significant impact on Jewish thought
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Speaker 1: in our own time, namely Rabbi Jonathan sax and yet Greenberg.
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Speaker 1: To conduct this conversation, we are honored to be joined
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Speaker 1: by a world renowned authority on the subject, Rabbi doctor
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Speaker 1: Alon Goshen Gotstein, a leading voice in the worlds of
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Speaker 1: interpaith engagement and Jewish thoughts. Doctor gush and Goutstin received
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Speaker 1: his doctorate from the Hebrew University and has since taught
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Speaker 1: in a variety of universities, colleges, and religious institutions, and
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Speaker 1: today serves as the accounting director of the Elijah Interpaith Institute.
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Speaker 1: He has written numerous books on religious and Jewish thoughts,
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Speaker 1: including his recent twenty twenty three book Covenant and World
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Speaker 1: Religions Irving Greenberg Jonathan Saxon a quest Orthodox Pluralism published
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Speaker 1: by Lidman Library. It is a pleasure to welcome doctor
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Speaker 1: Gushen Gotstin to the podcast Jewish Ideas Today. Welcome sir,
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Speaker 1: Thank you JJ.
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Speaker 2: You do this in such a belonderful British manner. Maybe
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Speaker 2: I want to comment on the description of me as
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Speaker 2: as a ayer you died as you put it said, Ah,
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Speaker 2: I suppose you spelled that a r U d t E.
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Speaker 2: In other words, someone who spend most of the time
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Speaker 2: flying in the air from one destination to the other,
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Speaker 2: and therefore is unreachable and therefore is a burden on
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Speaker 2: podcast organizers who have to try him time and again
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Speaker 2: to find the time. So my area edition. In other words,
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Speaker 2: all my frequent flying really has been taxing and trying
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Speaker 2: for you, and I want to thank you for your
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Speaker 2: patience till you finally nailed me down. I want to
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Speaker 2: add two things to your introduction of me. First of all,
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Speaker 2: in terms of books written this week, I celebrate the
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Speaker 2: publication of what I believe is my most important work
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Speaker 2: because it is my own theological statement rather than analyzing
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Speaker 2: other people's theological statements. There was an Israeli edition that
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Speaker 2: came out for the World Congress of Jewish Studies back
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Speaker 2: in August, published by Magnus rather distributed by Magnus, but
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Speaker 2: the main publication has just come out at Baker Academic
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Speaker 2: and the book is called In God's Presence, a Theological
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Speaker 2: Reintroduction to Judaism. I spent a quarter of a century
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Speaker 2: working on this, and it really goes to the heart
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Speaker 2: of these questions of particularism and universalism, because it seeks
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Speaker 2: to make a contemporary statement of Judaism. And you cannot
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Speaker 2: ask for the ultimate meaning of Judaism without looking this
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Speaker 2: question in the eyes. And therefore the final and longest
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Speaker 2: chapter in this book explores the meaning of Jewish universalism,
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Speaker 2: the whole trajectory of Jewish history, the meaning of Jewish particularity,
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Speaker 2: and I consider that the discussion that is most representative
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Speaker 2: of my own thought, and I hope in the context
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Speaker 2: of our conversations, I'll have a chance to deal with it.
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Speaker 2: And what this really means is that I come at
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Speaker 2: this topic of particularism and universalism not only as the
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Speaker 2: erudite scholar that you described me to be, which hopefully
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Speaker 2: I can live up to a little bit, but also
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Speaker 2: as someone who devotes his life to this problem. Because
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Speaker 2: as director of an interfaith institute that brings together scholars
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Speaker 2: and major faith leaders from all religions and places Jewish
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Speaker 2: leaders together with leaders of other faiths, I wear two hats.
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Speaker 2: One hat the interfaith hat that sort of has to
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Speaker 2: deal with everyone on equal footing, But the other is
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Speaker 2: the Jewish theology of religions, which asks the questions, what
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Speaker 2: does this all mean to us as Jews in our
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Speaker 2: engagement with other religions, and therefore the question of what
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Speaker 2: is the enduring Jewish message, testimony, responsibility? Universalism is not
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Speaker 2: for me simply a question of looking back at history,
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Speaker 2: but it is a vital existential question that informs also
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Speaker 2: my interfaith work. And by saying that much, I'm already
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Speaker 2: laying the ground to one of the messages that I
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Speaker 2: would like to deliver deliver in the context of your podcast,
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Speaker 2: and that is that a truly vibrant Judaism must tackle
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Speaker 2: this question as a major question. It's not a question
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Speaker 2: to be cast aside, and one of the signs of
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Speaker 2: spiritual impoverishment in present day Judaism is that the question
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Speaker 2: has been casticide if you look at most streams. I
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Speaker 2: can only speak for Orthodoxy. I think the configuration amongst
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Speaker 2: the non Orthodox is somewhat different because of the notions
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Speaker 2: of ticun and how they're positioned within broader society and
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Speaker 2: various other factors. But speaking for Orthodoxy, I would say
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Speaker 2: the overwhelming majority of Orthodox practitioners, leaders, and even thinkers,
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Speaker 2: if there are thinkers, do not take this topic up
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Speaker 2: at all. What that means that they are satisfied with
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Speaker 2: propagating the Jewish way of life, guiding people, enriching them
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Speaker 2: with Torah, but fail to ask some of the ultimate
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Speaker 2: questions about the meaning of Judaism. It may be enough
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Speaker 2: of them to think of the world to come or
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Speaker 2: Jewish continuity, or any other form of spiritual accomplishment, including
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Speaker 2: high mystical attainments. But the meaning of Judaism as a
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Speaker 2: people and as a movement is something that is not
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Speaker 2: asked universally, and it to me, that's a sign of crisis.
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Speaker 2: And overall, I think theologically and spiritually Judaism is in
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Speaker 2: a state of crisis. So when you refer to these
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Speaker 2: two individuals, Rabbi Sax and Greenberg, these are individuals who
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Speaker 2: I think recognize the crisis and are willing to deal
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Speaker 2: with it. And my last point, because I'm talking way more,
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Speaker 2: way longer than the pleasantry you invited me to make
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Speaker 2: it at the beginning of my following you introduction, I
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Speaker 2: want to talk about rough Cook for a second. I'm
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Speaker 2: a great fan, very close on multiple levels to rough Cook.
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Speaker 2: There isn't page of rough Cook that doesn't touch on
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Speaker 2: this question or particular Well, maybe I'm overstating it, but
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Speaker 2: almost there isn't a page of his conceptual thinking that doesn't,
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Speaker 2: in one way or another, talk about it. He cannot
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Speaker 2: think of the meaning of Judaism and his spiritual life
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Speaker 2: without looking at the broader perspective of Judaism message to
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Speaker 2: the world, the eventual hope what we represent. That, of course,
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Speaker 2: frames also his expectations for Jewish revival on the state
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Speaker 2: of Israel and the movement that he hoped would take
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Speaker 2: place here in the ninety years since he passed away. So,
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Speaker 2: to me, the sign of spiritual, deep, spiritual authenticity vision
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Speaker 2: spirituality is to take these questions seriously. And while many figures,
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Speaker 2: including figures to whom I'm personally attached, show great dimensions
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Speaker 2: deep dimensions of attachment to their spiritual life, their failure
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Speaker 2: to tackle these issues and they're living exclusively within their
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Speaker 2: own spiritual circles is also an expression of a ultimately
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Speaker 2: a crisis that is a counterpart of the greater crisis
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Speaker 2: of the people of Israel. So why don't we take
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Speaker 2: the conversation from this opening statement and see where you
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Speaker 2: want to take it.
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Speaker 1: So you mentioned an awful lot that I'm very happy
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Speaker 1: you sort of laid out the ground as you see it.
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Speaker 1: So let me ask a very simple question, then, why,
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Speaker 1: Because why is it the case that's in your diagnosis.
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Speaker 1: We currently stand in a kind of, let's say, less
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Speaker 1: than ideal states when it comes to the consideration on
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Speaker 1: the part of Jewish thinkers of the Jewish universal message
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Speaker 1: and telling Judaism outwards, what has led to our current states?
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Speaker 1: Why are we in this? In this mess?
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Speaker 2: David twiss Alibni it was also an important tumutus, but
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Speaker 2: also in his own way he made some meaningful contributions
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Speaker 2: to Jewish theology. I used to expound the notion of
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Speaker 2: rata is our sins. I don't want to be a
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Speaker 2: simplistic as to say, well, it is a sin or
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Speaker 2: because of our syns. This has happened, but things have
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Speaker 2: gone orry in our story. I was just reading today
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Speaker 2: of Cook. I was reading his eulogy for Herzel, where
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Speaker 2: he offers a vision of Jewish history where he considers
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Speaker 2: the break of the kingdom between v and Irovam. There's
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Speaker 2: the breaking point between body and spirit and soul in
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Speaker 2: the people of Israel, which ultimately results in exile and
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Speaker 2: the inability to harmonize our universal dimension as represented in
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Speaker 2: the tribe of Joseph and his universality and going down
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Speaker 2: to Egypt and providing for everyone and speaking seventy languages,
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Speaker 2: and Judah who has the particularly of Torah, particularity of Torah,
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Speaker 2: and whether while they should have been integrated, they became
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Speaker 2: bifurcated into two kingdoms, and therefore our universal humanity and
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Speaker 2: our particular spirituality are in a state of disharmony, disconnect.
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Speaker 2: I would almost say, a kind of spiritual psychosis, where
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Speaker 2: we are two dimensions that are not harmoniously living amongst themselves,
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Speaker 2: and that finds expression in splits within the Jewish people
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Speaker 2: and continuing tensions that accompany us for at least two
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Speaker 2: hundred years, but whose roots are much deeper, and the
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Speaker 2: depth of those roots ultimately point to the fact that
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Speaker 2: we sometimes think of our story, our collective story, is
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Speaker 2: a great success story, and we count bill winners and
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Speaker 2: find other or startup nation or military miracles or whatever
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Speaker 2: it is that or even even the sufferings that we've
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Speaker 2: undergone that are unique to us. In some ways. We
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Speaker 2: often point to those as markers of our particularity, any specialness, excellence,
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Speaker 2: but we fail to take into account that our history
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Speaker 2: is marred by the fact that in our own self understanding, biblically, liturgically, philosophically,
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Speaker 2: we are also a story of failure, and the best
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Speaker 2: we can do is engage in processes of return, return
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Speaker 2: to the land, return in the sense of chuvah return
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Speaker 2: in the sense of mission to our higher ground. And consequently,
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Speaker 2: we have a very very difficult history stemming from original sins,
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Speaker 2: shall we say, beyond the ademic sins. But you know
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Speaker 2: I just mentioned cooked with once in the destruction of
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Speaker 2: the temple and going into exile as others. So it's
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Speaker 2: been a history where Jurish survival has taken precedence over
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Speaker 2: the idealism of Judaism. And therefore you need to be
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Speaker 2: able to have a context in which you're not only
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Speaker 2: engaged in spiritual survival, and by spiritual and survival is
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Speaker 2: not just let's keep the midst of it, but even
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Speaker 2: let's attain the highest spiritual heights within the mitsuo. But
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Speaker 2: it's still self involved in your own existence, in your
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Speaker 2: own spirituality, and that taking place against the context of
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Speaker 2: a very hostile and nigudi. How would you say this
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Speaker 2: in English? Oppositional oppositional reality between between Jews and their
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Speaker 2: surrounding environment. Now I understand that in Nahol Kelmer has
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Speaker 2: represented some other moments in which Jews, Muslims and Christians
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Speaker 2: were able to meet on the high ground of a
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Speaker 2: spiritual vision that you're not them all under certain historical
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Speaker 2: conditions that made that possible, and certain historical conditions have
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Speaker 2: been also possible in the past since emancipation that could
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Speaker 2: potentially grow common ground and restore universalism. But the point
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Speaker 2: is that restoration of universalism or universal vision of Judaism
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Speaker 2: went along with decline and spiritual practice. So these tensions
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Speaker 2: between Jews and non Jews Jews amongst themselves, have led
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Speaker 2: to a kind of insularity that has very often caused
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Speaker 2: a loss of vision and purpose. And only specific individuals
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Speaker 2: or schools. In other words, I was trained in such
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Speaker 2: a school, So I don't want to attribute my own
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Speaker 2: position only to personal stature, but largely hopefully the result
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Speaker 2: of a good education. But only certain individuals certain schools
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Speaker 2: were able to formulate such positions that were taken them
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Speaker 2: beyond that oppositionality. So ultimately the answer why we've lasted
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Speaker 2: is because of the fundamental crisis that characterizes Jewish history,
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Speaker 2: which is a story of failure seeking to regain its
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Speaker 2: original purpose, and the return to a universalistic vision is
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Speaker 2: part of the return to that original vision.
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Speaker 1: So, according to your diagnosis, at the moment, we are
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Speaker 1: not living up.
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Speaker 2: To that correct well, we're trying everyone is trying, but
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Speaker 2: when you look at the full vision, we should ideally
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Speaker 2: in all the different sectors of the Jewish world in society,
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Speaker 2: it should be able to point to its own weaknesses
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Speaker 2: rather than pointing to the weaknesses in the other sector.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 1: So, one concept that you have written about, in conjunction
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Speaker 1: with your writings on the universalistic vision of other thinkers,
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Speaker 1: perhaps your own as well, is the notion of covenant
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Speaker 1: and the ways in which covenant can and perhaps would
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Speaker 1: or should be used, or that it is central to
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Speaker 1: Judaism's relationship with other religions. Let's say, So, can you
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Speaker 1: elaborate on this point, and especially as it pertains to
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Speaker 1: let's say, the kinds of universalisms that have been proposed
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Speaker 1: in the recent decades, to what extent is covenantal theology
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Speaker 1: at its center?
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Speaker 2: Well with covenantal theology, is what do you mean by
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Speaker 2: covenantal theology? The biblical sense of covenantal theologies in itself
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Speaker 2: a very unlikely candidate to serve as a theological vehicle
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Speaker 2: for universalism, because covenant biblically is framed in the context
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Speaker 2: of one God versus others, one people versus others. There's
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Speaker 2: no implicit ground initially for expanding the covenant. It takes
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Speaker 2: a revision of the notion of covenant has occurred in
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Speaker 2: twentieth cent Jewish thought to apply covenant to relation with
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Speaker 2: other religions, and such a revision has taken place in
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Speaker 2: several thinkers, amongst whom Saxon Greenberg so as David Hartman
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Speaker 2: Eugen Borrowitz can be included. The point is that covenant
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Speaker 2: for them becomes not an exclusive relationship that's made with God,
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Speaker 2: but a sense of human responsibility in relation to God
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Speaker 2: and the grounds for a social commitment and organization of
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Speaker 2: people who mutually commit themselves, so we say, in the
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Speaker 2: presence of God, but not always towards God. So there's
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Speaker 2: been a move away from the initial sense of covenant
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Speaker 2: to covenant in the Puritan sense, where covenant is the
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Speaker 2: social pact that provides the basis for a community living
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Speaker 2: together or through a theological category. Sex is familiar with
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Speaker 2: biblical sources, but were it not for that Puritan tradition,
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Speaker 2: I don't think covenant would have ever been as central
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Speaker 2: it is. And when he exports covenant judas message, it's
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Speaker 2: in part a return to Biblical sources and in part
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Speaker 2: drawing on the fact that for him, much more important
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Speaker 2: than the religious dimension of multiple relationships with God is
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Speaker 2: the social harmony model, where society is ordered harmoniously in
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Speaker 2: God's presence through covenants. From that perspective, the universalism of
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Speaker 2: covenant is universalism of organizing societies. Here, when we draw
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Speaker 2: the distinction between the discourse of theology of religions and
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Speaker 2: the discourse that we're sharing here, theology of religions would
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Speaker 2: talk about pluralism or inclusivism or another category that would
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Speaker 2: allow for making for the other. Within my own theoretical framework,
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Speaker 2: universalism per se is not a theological category. Well, it
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Speaker 2: is a theological but it's not a category of theology
17:11
Speaker 2: of religions of a viewing other religions, and therefore pluralism
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Speaker 2: plays a very minor role, certainly in sects. It plays
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Speaker 2: a more significant role for Greenberg, with the idea being
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Speaker 2: that what's important for him and covenant is how those
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Speaker 2: members of those other societies, rather than the religions as
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Speaker 2: spiritual structures, can apply covenant. So it's only a very
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Speaker 2: specific usage of covenant that becomes relevant if I can
17:38
Speaker 2: reference my work as it came out just now in
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Speaker 2: this new book in God's Presence, I too appeal to Covenant,
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Speaker 2: and I sometimes ask myself why am I doing that?
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Speaker 2: Should I have done that? Maybe because I'd been in
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Speaker 2: this project for so long that my start, I started
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Speaker 2: teaching this work assuming Covenant and just took it for granted.
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Speaker 2: And maybe maybe if I started at some point later
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Speaker 2: in time, I might have not built it in Covenant.
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Speaker 2: But I built it Uncovenant in a much more expansive sense,
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Speaker 2: in a sense that maintains the original commitment to God
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Speaker 2: and enhances it through dimensions of meanings rather than being
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Speaker 2: brought from contemporary philosophy that seek to empower the human
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Speaker 2: person in partnership with God, and partnership for sax and
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Speaker 2: Greenberg is a very central notion I actually take in
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Speaker 2: the direction of Hasidic and Cabalistic texts, and therefore Covenant
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Speaker 2: becomes partnering with God, but also mystical union with God
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Speaker 2: and also a sharing of existence with God, and also
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Speaker 2: ultimately the divinization of man within Covenant. So I work
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Speaker 2: with Covenant in a historically more robust sense that creates
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Speaker 2: greater openings and therefore also raises other issues regarding what
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Speaker 2: it means for the application of the notion of covenant
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Speaker 2: to other peoples into other faiths. So where I go
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Speaker 2: with it, and my work is his fall. My key notion,
19:03
Speaker 2: I abandon universalism if you want. I'm not going to
19:07
Speaker 2: open the parentheses now and give you the various potential
19:10
Speaker 2: understandings of what the term universalism is. The brief line
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Speaker 2: is that universalism we think we know what it means,
19:16
Speaker 2: but it means so many things to different people that
19:18
Speaker 2: unless you really clearly define your terms, universalism serves to
19:24
Speaker 2: hide rather than to clarify. I prefer to talk about
19:27
Speaker 2: the notion of expanding the Covenant, and I see a
19:29
Speaker 2: movement of expansion of the covenant per se in that
19:35
Speaker 2: the hopes that Judaism has fulfilled in the people of
19:39
Speaker 2: Israel serve as a model for other people. Now, Sex
19:42
Speaker 2: also shares this notion of being a model for others,
19:45
Speaker 2: but as emphasis doesn't go as far as going into
19:48
Speaker 2: the full religious dimension. I make an argument that I'm
19:52
Speaker 2: not going to rehearse here, but maybe I should just
19:55
Speaker 2: point to to one particular text that I consider to
19:58
Speaker 2: be very represented of this movement, and that is the
20:03
Speaker 2: prophecy in Isaiah fifty six, where I read the promise
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Speaker 2: of vabiotimhako chives and can be debate fel like, bring
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Speaker 2: them to my sacred mount, and I will make them
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Speaker 2: rejoice in my house of prayer, because my house approval,
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Speaker 2: the house of prayer for all nations. I read it
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Speaker 2: in context of that oracle in Isaiah as a covenantal
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Speaker 2: oracle that shows the expansion of the Covenant to other people.
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Speaker 2: Some have read that as conversion to Judaism. That, by
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Speaker 2: the way, is one way of understanding universalism. What is
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Speaker 2: it that expands the Jewish people, expands other people become
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Speaker 2: part of the Jewish people, That is a universalism. But
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Speaker 2: I read it as other people forming their own parallel
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Speaker 2: relationships with God, whether in religions or out of religions,
20:52
Speaker 2: or in a new form of religion. Be that so,
20:55
Speaker 2: taking all of it together, I think that Covenant actually
20:59
Speaker 2: has promise for a Jewish message for the future. If
21:04
Speaker 2: we return to biblical roots and we read them so,
21:07
Speaker 2: we say more fully than the more anthroposcentic reading that
21:13
Speaker 2: govern much of the use of the term in the
21:15
Speaker 2: second half of the twentieth century. Have I been clear?
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Speaker 2: Have I spoken so much that nobody can follow?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? No, one hundredth clear, and I do want to actually, Okay,
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Speaker 1: so I respect that we're not going to go down
21:27
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole definitions of universalism, and that's completely fine. However,
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Speaker 1: I do want to make one or request one slight distinction,
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Speaker 1: especially as we get into the photo Jonathan sax And
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Speaker 1: in Greenberg, et cetera. Which is you used to word
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Speaker 1: pluralism there, and did ascribe that to some of these thinkers?
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Speaker 1: And can I ask for a distinction if it exists
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Speaker 1: between pluralism and universalism, and whether one is more appropriate
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Speaker 1: to use in these contexts and the other.
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Speaker 2: Typically one doesn't use universalism outside the diet of particularism
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Speaker 2: and universalism, which means that to begin with, you're seeing
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Speaker 2: the other through yourself. You're trying to ask, so here
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Speaker 2: I am, this is my message, this is my identity.
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Speaker 2: How does it relate to the other and to the
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Speaker 2: other's message into the others? Not to the others, but
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Speaker 2: to everyone else's. So it's not particularities, it's me versus
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Speaker 2: everyone else. Finally, enough, one of the contributions of sex
22:36
Speaker 2: is to go beyond that universality, he caes is a
22:38
Speaker 2: platonic universality and to speak of multiple particularities, but in
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Speaker 2: these multiple particularities he avoids taking the final step of
22:51
Speaker 2: what pluralism is. Pluralism is parallel in theory, equally valid
22:59
Speaker 2: paths to go a past of the spiritual life or
23:02
Speaker 2: revelations depending on the nuance, all of which achieved the
23:06
Speaker 2: same thing. Now, pluralism has multiple particularities. If you have
23:12
Speaker 2: multiple particularities, you don't need universalism because your starting point
23:16
Speaker 2: is multiple particularities, not your particularity versus that of the other.
23:22
Speaker 2: But in fact, those two discourses become somewhat confused if
23:27
Speaker 2: you're not focused on the quality of the other religions.
23:29
Speaker 2: You know, if you're asking what's the legitimacy the spiritual
23:32
Speaker 2: life of other religions, you will you will move to
23:35
Speaker 2: questions of pluralism. If you're talking about Judaism's message to
23:41
Speaker 2: the world and its view of the world, then you
23:43
Speaker 2: are Judaism is the starting point or Israel's the starting point,
23:45
Speaker 2: and you're asking how that relates to others. So there's
23:48
Speaker 2: a significant overlap but also distinctions between the applications of
23:52
Speaker 2: the category. So, just to illustrate this, Greenberg is a pluralist,
23:58
Speaker 2: He's a declared pluralist who believe there's validity to multiple
24:03
Speaker 2: religions as God communicates with humanity. Sacs got into trouble
24:10
Speaker 2: for pluralism dignity of difference. One had statements and pluralism.
24:15
Speaker 2: It irked some of his rabbis. He had to revise
24:19
Speaker 2: it and move from a position that we call pluralism
24:22
Speaker 2: to a position that we call inclusivism. Inclusivism means that
24:27
Speaker 2: we hold the key to someone else's truth where they
24:30
Speaker 2: are part of our truth. And if you compare first
24:35
Speaker 2: edition and second edition, you see that everything has shifted
24:37
Speaker 2: from pluralistic framing to statements of the Noheide commandments they
24:44
Speaker 2: know being Judaism's message to humanity, and therefore there's moral uprightness.
24:50
Speaker 2: But there is an equal validity to other religions. But
24:53
Speaker 2: in fact, he's much less concerned about the questions of pluralism,
24:56
Speaker 2: and his particular word was never intended to come across
25:04
Speaker 2: as serving a pluralist agenda. He was much more concerned
25:08
Speaker 2: with upholding multiple particularisms, which in turn create a new
25:17
Speaker 2: landscape of universalism, but a universalism that gives everyone's status
25:21
Speaker 2: in their multiple particularism. So multiple particular i think what
25:25
Speaker 2: we need is not to distinguish, in the case of sex,
25:29
Speaker 2: between pluralism and universalism and pluralism and multiple particularism.
25:35
Speaker 1: Interesting. I actually so sticking on Jonathan Sacks Jonathan sac
25:39
Speaker 1: a little bit for the moment. I'm curious about this
25:43
Speaker 1: because there is this how can I say this, this
25:46
Speaker 1: sort of hard border one could say, to his pluralism
25:49
Speaker 1: or to his universities. In other words, there are boundaries
25:53
Speaker 1: he will decline to cross. So it seems to me
25:56
Speaker 1: there are certain places he won't go. Let's say, and
25:59
Speaker 1: as if you could elaborate on that little bit, no,
26:03
Speaker 1: why not? What was it about Raba Jonathan Sax's general philosophical,
26:08
Speaker 1: theological frameworks or perhaps personal intellectual tendencies that did not
26:13
Speaker 1: permit him to go quite as far as let's say,
26:16
Speaker 1: Rabba Yits Greenberg, who who you sort of compared him to,
26:20
Speaker 1: and others as well. In other words, that there seems
26:21
Speaker 1: to be a way in which Rabbi Sax holds back
26:25
Speaker 1: from pursuing what might be called a full throated pluralism
26:28
Speaker 1: or something like that.
26:29
Speaker 2: So you just use the adjective hardy heart boundary, and
26:35
Speaker 2: I would argue that there's a soft boundary. A heart
26:37
Speaker 2: boundary is when there's an ideology or haloja or something
26:40
Speaker 2: that prevents you from going there. In principle, a soft
26:44
Speaker 2: boundary is a personal tendency. Could he, with his genius
26:50
Speaker 2: capacities and his ability to argue something, have taken relations
26:56
Speaker 2: between religions to a point of genuin pluralism? Sure he
26:59
Speaker 2: could have. Did he know? Why not? Because he wasn't interested.
27:02
Speaker 2: Why was it not interested? Big mystery to me, big mystery.
27:06
Speaker 2: Why someone with such expansive horizons showed so little real
27:10
Speaker 2: interest in other particularities. He made a huge case for
27:15
Speaker 2: the value of those particularies, but showed almost no interest
27:18
Speaker 2: in benefiting from them, learning them, exchanging them. I think
27:23
Speaker 2: it had to do with formative childhood experiences. He describes
27:26
Speaker 2: them in his books. You know, they went to school,
27:28
Speaker 2: people got along civilly with one another. They accepted each
27:31
Speaker 2: other in their difference. They didn't make a big deal
27:33
Speaker 2: of it. Why start to get into all these discussions
27:35
Speaker 2: of identity and particularity. Maybe biographical, maybe psychological, whatever it is,
27:41
Speaker 2: it's not hard. It's a personal tendency. And that's good
27:45
Speaker 2: because had it been hard, then his devotees and followers
27:49
Speaker 2: might say, well, he forbade us to do that, in
27:51
Speaker 2: the same way that people who follow sulla Agic might
27:54
Speaker 2: feel the same way with hard boundaries, which over time
27:58
Speaker 2: have softened due to circumstance and reinterpretation. But in the
28:03
Speaker 2: case of sex, they were never hard bundaries, were just
28:05
Speaker 2: personal preferences and personality.
28:08
Speaker 1: And you did mention briefly a sudden affair, which you know,
28:13
Speaker 1: I actually remember at the time I was quite young,
28:15
Speaker 1: but I do remember that growing up in English jury,
28:18
Speaker 1: this was the sort of was somewhat explosive. Then in
28:21
Speaker 1: round about the year two thousand, published the book Dignity
28:23
Speaker 1: of Difference that contained some lines that caused great controversy
28:26
Speaker 1: with the Orthodox community, and he had to revise them.
28:31
Speaker 1: Do you and you talked a bit about these revisions.
28:33
Speaker 1: We're not going to go over them, but do you
28:34
Speaker 1: believe that his revision stemmed from you know, did they
28:40
Speaker 1: stem from, let's say, just being forced externally to I
28:44
Speaker 1: don't know, clarify his position or modify it to make
28:46
Speaker 1: it more conservative, or just the did his sort of
28:50
Speaker 1: more cautious second edition reflect more accurately who what is
28:54
Speaker 1: actual worldview.
28:56
Speaker 2: Was complicated question he wrote. He wrote the book to
29:00
Speaker 2: memoried one year of nine to eleven. From inside sources,
29:06
Speaker 2: I know that the book suffered from the fact that,
29:09
Speaker 2: due to being rushed to press, it didn't have the
29:12
Speaker 2: same review process of some of the people who usually
29:14
Speaker 2: reviewed his work and gave him feedback. In many ways,
29:21
Speaker 2: he was not a theologian. He was a social thinker,
29:23
Speaker 2: someone who was able to motivate the community religion religiously,
29:27
Speaker 2: to inspire them. So he could live with these contradictions,
29:30
Speaker 2: and you know he could. There was a certain degree
29:33
Speaker 2: of inconsistency or fluidity, I call it. He was a
29:35
Speaker 2: contextual thinker. So if to make the point, and he
29:39
Speaker 2: was a great orator, so to make the point, it
29:42
Speaker 2: worked better by delivering a strong pluralist punch. So be
29:46
Speaker 2: it when he had to retract, that was purely under pressure.
29:53
Speaker 2: I think the point is it didn't matter that much
29:55
Speaker 2: to him that he had to retract. It was I
29:57
Speaker 2: don't think that he sold his true There's different views
30:00
Speaker 2: on this. Some of my colleagues see differently. Some of
30:03
Speaker 2: my colleagues, you know, think that you know, once he
30:05
Speaker 2: would be free from the shackles of the Rabbinet and
30:09
Speaker 2: the opinion of the dianeum he would be free to
30:12
Speaker 2: express his true self, which is truly pluralists. And they
30:14
Speaker 2: were surprised because by the time he left the Rabbinet
30:16
Speaker 2: he wasn't dealing with this anymore, and he was recrafting
30:19
Speaker 2: the same sources to deliver other messages and his concern.
30:24
Speaker 2: He was a moral philosopher much more than he was
30:26
Speaker 2: a theologian of religions, and so for his purposes he
30:30
Speaker 2: gets his point across one way or another. So it's
30:32
Speaker 2: not like he was hiding. In my reading, it's not
30:35
Speaker 2: like he was hiding his true message, and then it
30:37
Speaker 2: came through under pressure of vice versa. I think both
30:40
Speaker 2: versions served his agenda. There was anyway not theological, and
30:44
Speaker 2: therefore he could live with either.
30:47
Speaker 1: And okay, so this is actually a good segue's move
30:50
Speaker 1: into the second of the two theologians, who you think
30:53
Speaker 1: is who you've we written on, especially because Rabbi yits
30:58
Speaker 1: or Irvin Greenberg was morematic as you written. He was
31:01
Speaker 1: more of a theologian and he had a more extensive,
31:05
Speaker 1: orthodox grounded form of religious universalism. So can you take
31:09
Speaker 1: us a little bit through that? I mean What were
31:11
Speaker 1: the major aspects of this framework? It's much easier to
31:14
Speaker 1: speak of a framework when it comes to Greenberg than
31:17
Speaker 1: with Sax.
31:17
Speaker 2: I would say, so, what are you asking me?
31:22
Speaker 1: I mean, let let's ok, okay, So let's sharpen the question.
31:25
Speaker 1: The basics of the theological framework of Rabbi Yitzgreenberg? And
31:30
Speaker 1: you know what were the What was his fundamental orientation
31:34
Speaker 1: that allowed him to explore universalism more daringly, let's say,
31:38
Speaker 1: than other orthodox thinkers.
31:39
Speaker 2: I don't think you can do this without looking at
31:41
Speaker 2: his biography. It's start with his engagement with Showa. Led
31:46
Speaker 2: him to encounter Christians who were willing to rethink their
31:49
Speaker 2: religion in deep ways. Let him to recognize the spiritual value.
31:55
Speaker 2: Let him to friendships. Sax had no meaning for friendships
32:00
Speaker 2: with other members of other faith. Greenberg did I do
32:04
Speaker 2: for me. It's a foundation of my own spiritual life.
32:07
Speaker 2: I've written a book called Friendship Across Religions, a collection
32:10
Speaker 2: of essays. I'm now designing an interfaith museum in Assi.
32:14
Speaker 2: It's called the Global House of Friendship and Hope. Friendship
32:16
Speaker 2: is very central to me. Friendship changes your whole attitude.
32:20
Speaker 2: If you have another person a real person in a relationship.
32:23
Speaker 2: Then you owe, you feel you owe something to that person,
32:26
Speaker 2: not oh, like a concrete debt, but you owe that
32:30
Speaker 2: person is in your thoughts, that that person or that
32:33
Speaker 2: group represents an alternative reality you have to take seriously.
32:36
Speaker 2: They're not just a set of ideas. They're not just
32:39
Speaker 2: a group in society with whom you seek to live.
32:42
Speaker 2: But there the commitments are much deeper. So his engagement
32:46
Speaker 2: with transformation of others personal relationships led him to see
32:51
Speaker 2: things in Christianity that then therefore opened his mind through
32:54
Speaker 2: his experience. So at the end of the day, I
32:56
Speaker 2: would attribute the difference not to theological formation. Their theological
33:01
Speaker 2: formation was close enough. If anything, Sax had a far
33:04
Speaker 2: wider formation. Greenberg was a specialist in American history. Sax
33:12
Speaker 2: could potentially be Man was a encyclopedica, could be a
33:15
Speaker 2: specialist in anything. He had, you know, wonderful humanistic training
33:19
Speaker 2: in Cambridge. And yet somehow it's skipped over religion. He
33:22
Speaker 2: did all kinds of other things, he did philosophy, whatever,
33:24
Speaker 2: but didn't didn't get into religion. That that's where his
33:26
Speaker 2: personality was. He could have he could have had relationships,
33:30
Speaker 2: he could have he could have in the same way
33:31
Speaker 2: that he was impressed by teachers there of certain caliber.
33:34
Speaker 2: He might have encountered someone who moved it personally. Things
33:37
Speaker 2: could have taken in the direction. I really think these
33:39
Speaker 2: are purely incidental and secondary and biographical considerations, and they
33:44
Speaker 2: own neither to fundamental differences nor to profound differences in
33:50
Speaker 2: intellectual spiritual formation.
33:52
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, I mean, then then let me ask
33:54
Speaker 1: the following. You mentioned that by Greenberg dove deeply into
33:57
Speaker 1: the waters of specifically Jewish Christian encounter and wrote at
34:01
Speaker 1: length about attitudes towards Christianity and had I was almost
34:06
Speaker 1: a radically positive view of Christianity. Suddenly in his own day,
34:10
Speaker 1: do you elaborate a little bit on this, I mean,
34:11
Speaker 1: his own universalism as tied to Christianity and what Christians
34:17
Speaker 1: or Christianity meant for. Of course, at many points in history,
34:20
Speaker 1: Christianity was seen as fundamentally adversarial or even you know,
34:26
Speaker 1: a deadly threat to Jews and Judaism. But in the
34:29
Speaker 1: writings of yet Greenberg, one gets a very opposite sense.
34:31
Speaker 2: Because Greenberg encountered repentant Christianity, and that made all the difference.
34:35
Speaker 2: Rather than triumphant Christianity. He encountered repent in Christianity amongst
34:39
Speaker 2: the people he met, most of whom were not a Catholic,
34:43
Speaker 2: Orthodox or Protestant, but also some some I think Roy Ercart,
34:47
Speaker 2: if I remember correct, wast his denomination, we can check
34:51
Speaker 2: it out. But also later you know his appreciation for Australita,
34:54
Speaker 2: which we're also rating sixty years of this month, and
35:00
Speaker 2: that's the the for the listeners. That's the Vatican Council
35:05
Speaker 2: Vatican twos document and other religions, especially Judaism opening the
35:09
Speaker 2: gate for new and important chapters in Jewish, Catholic, and
35:13
Speaker 2: more broadly Christian religious So he encountered repentant Christianity, and
35:17
Speaker 2: I think that made all the difference. The journey that
35:22
Speaker 2: he made in relation to Christianity he never made in
35:25
Speaker 2: relation to other religions. We've discussed this. My book includes
35:28
Speaker 2: an interview with him. His formative experiences were with Christianity.
35:32
Speaker 2: He sought to expand them beyond Christianity to other faiths,
35:37
Speaker 2: with less success because he lived those relationships less profoundly.
35:41
Speaker 2: If I can come back to myself because of my
35:44
Speaker 2: interfaith work, I you know, the other day someone asked me,
35:47
Speaker 2: do you have friends in Christianity yeah. And Islam yeah,
35:49
Speaker 2: and Hinduisim yeah. And Buddhisim yeah, and Sikhism yeah. I'm delighted.
35:52
Speaker 2: You know. Well, a few years ago I made a
35:54
Speaker 2: profound new relationship with a Bahai and then with a Mormon,
35:57
Speaker 2: and then I'm discovering I'm discovering the depth of spiritual
35:59
Speaker 2: life relationships, which for me are very, very central. And
36:03
Speaker 2: the more you discover the spiritual lives of people in
36:06
Speaker 2: other faith, the more you appreciate what it does to
36:09
Speaker 2: their lives. And therefore the spiritual validity has not by
36:14
Speaker 2: virtue of making faith claims, but by its transformative power
36:17
Speaker 2: in the lives of people. What Greenberg saw was the
36:20
Speaker 2: transformative power of Christian faith in the lives of the
36:22
Speaker 2: people he met in Christianity. He didn't see it in
36:25
Speaker 2: the lives of other relationships because simply never had them.
36:28
Speaker 2: He got at that point, he moved on. He ran Klall.
36:30
Speaker 2: He became involved in Jewish than the Jewish the Holocaust Museum,
36:35
Speaker 2: Jewish public life took up his intention much more than
36:37
Speaker 2: into faith work. So he just extended the principles, but
36:40
Speaker 2: those deep relations were limited to so at the end
36:43
Speaker 2: of the day. Biography, relationship, personal tendency account for all
36:47
Speaker 2: of us. They account for why some Jews are limited
36:50
Speaker 2: because of their historical and personal experience. They account for
36:53
Speaker 2: why Sachs took and Greenberg took their respective directions. For
36:57
Speaker 2: me as well, my informative experience to the fact of
37:00
Speaker 2: why I am personally, I go farther than them experientially, theologically,
37:06
Speaker 2: practically in devoting my life to this. For both of those,
37:10
Speaker 2: it was a a side event. For Greenberg more more
37:16
Speaker 2: central than for Sex. For me, it's the driving force
37:19
Speaker 2: of my work or my vision of how I personally
37:22
Speaker 2: manifest the relationship between Jewish particularity in universalism through my
37:27
Speaker 2: own interfaith work, and my own interfaith work is also
37:30
Speaker 2: a way of upholding a very particular vision of Jewish
37:36
Speaker 2: balance of particularity in universality.
37:39
Speaker 1: Good. I want to dive into this a little bit
37:41
Speaker 1: more in terms of your own works and the ways
37:44
Speaker 1: in which they go beyond some of the other things
37:46
Speaker 1: let's say Sex and Greenberg specifically, i'd say philosophically or theologically.
37:51
Speaker 1: In other words, what concepts do you do you expand
37:56
Speaker 1: do you develop or push further than other other than
38:00
Speaker 1: previous Orthodox thinkers, And yeah, I mean, what is the
38:04
Speaker 1: that's an ideational basis of your ands faith work that
38:07
Speaker 1: you see the chart territory that they didn't.
38:12
Speaker 2: It's an interesting question because I don't know if the basis.
38:16
Speaker 2: I don't think my work is finished. I would hope
38:18
Speaker 2: that God gives me very many long years of creativity.
38:22
Speaker 2: I can see seventy on the horizon, and thank God,
38:25
Speaker 2: I can also see on the horizon book number thirty
38:27
Speaker 2: coming out, including several books that are currently already in
38:31
Speaker 2: the press. And I've been blessed with creativity, and therefore
38:37
Speaker 2: I can I give thanks. I would have accomplished to day.
38:41
Speaker 2: But I still see one book that I imagine as
38:45
Speaker 2: my last book, which is my own Jewish Theology of
38:47
Speaker 2: religious I don't think I've come up with the final
38:49
Speaker 2: statement hit. First of all, I intend a great project
38:53
Speaker 2: of research into rough Cook, because he's a great resource
38:56
Speaker 2: for me, and to capture all the nuances in wealth
38:59
Speaker 2: because they I mean, I wrote one article on that
39:01
Speaker 2: in the Cambridge Handbook on Jewish Theology of Religions, where
39:06
Speaker 2: I devoted a sub chapter to Cook. So I don't
39:09
Speaker 2: know that I have my ideas all worked out in
39:12
Speaker 2: the same way that I would say, experience conditions, how
39:15
Speaker 2: far you go? For me? Also, where I've gone beyond
39:18
Speaker 2: this first of all experience and the extent of personal
39:21
Speaker 2: engagement with other members of other faith and other faiths,
39:25
Speaker 2: I have probably relationally experientially time spent. I've clock more
39:33
Speaker 2: hours with faith communities as part of my own deepening
39:38
Speaker 2: of understanding of other faiths, identifying commonalities, creating bonds, and
39:44
Speaker 2: also growing spiritually through those encounters myself than any of
39:48
Speaker 2: the predecessors. In fact, I know very few people in
39:51
Speaker 2: the Jewish world who I can look up to as
39:52
Speaker 2: models for the kinds of journey I took. Most people
39:56
Speaker 2: are content to stay within the convent of their adult
39:59
Speaker 2: that I In other words, they're own private space and
40:02
Speaker 2: to reflect on others. And my journey is taking me
40:05
Speaker 2: into the spaces of others. So whatever I see and
40:07
Speaker 2: whatever I think really grows out of a range of
40:11
Speaker 2: experience that they they both those individuals. Really, the only
40:16
Speaker 2: person I can think of a previous generation is Almond Shacter,
40:19
Speaker 2: And even then, I don't know if I haven't spent
40:21
Speaker 2: more time thinking these issues through and experiencing them and
40:25
Speaker 2: being with them while upholding my own boundaries as an
40:29
Speaker 2: Orthodox practitioner and thinker, which is a challenge. So I
40:33
Speaker 2: don't have any model. It's been a path that's been
40:35
Speaker 2: guided from within or from above, if you will. That
40:39
Speaker 2: being said, then the question arises, so where is the
40:45
Speaker 2: theological and spiritual resource that allows me to move forward?
40:52
Speaker 2: And I this is what I said. I think I'm
40:55
Speaker 2: going to have to wait for that final statement till
40:57
Speaker 2: I'm ready for it. But I want to share one
41:00
Speaker 2: notion that's characteristic of my own approach to these issues
41:05
Speaker 2: that I have never seen anyone, Jewish or not Jewish
41:09
Speaker 2: articulate that I think is a new paradigm that we
41:12
Speaker 2: have to adopt, and it takes us past the paradigms
41:15
Speaker 2: of pluralism and inclusivism and past the paradigms of particularism
41:21
Speaker 2: and universality, which is the topic of your podcast. And
41:25
Speaker 2: I wrote this up in an essay that was devoted
41:29
Speaker 2: there was an issue of Contemporary Jeury. It's a magazine. Sorry,
41:36
Speaker 2: that magazine what's it called? A periodical? A scientific parodicle
41:38
Speaker 2: edited by a friend, Harriet Hartman, who invited me to
41:43
Speaker 2: have various authors reflect on my books on my interfaith
41:48
Speaker 2: works and a volume was dedicated to that, and I
41:51
Speaker 2: wrote the introduction to it and articulated there what I
41:54
Speaker 2: think is a very important insight that characterizes a different approach.
42:00
Speaker 2: When I say a different approach, it's not because it
42:01
Speaker 2: draws on a different Jewish theological resource, but frames the
42:05
Speaker 2: issue very differently. And I put forward the notion of
42:09
Speaker 2: co evolution of religions. Typically, the view of religions is
42:14
Speaker 2: that we exist in our separateness. Okay, let's go beyond
42:18
Speaker 2: that separateness and be tolerance, so we don't kill each other,
42:20
Speaker 2: Let's have peace. Let's go even a step further, and
42:22
Speaker 2: that already moves into my own territory. Let's draw inspiration
42:26
Speaker 2: from one another. I have found a way of framing
42:34
Speaker 2: the process of spiritual growth in terms of co evolution.
42:39
Speaker 2: All our religions have to move forward, they all have
42:42
Speaker 2: to grow together, and therefore Judaism's encounter with other religions
42:46
Speaker 2: as part of its coevolution. And that's true for other
42:48
Speaker 2: faiths as well. And like a living organism, we're all
42:52
Speaker 2: sharing and all growing simultaneously. Does Judaism with this context
42:58
Speaker 2: have a unique contribution to make? Absolutely? The problem is
43:02
Speaker 2: we don't really know how to say what it is.
43:04
Speaker 2: All too often our view of other faiths is trivializing.
43:08
Speaker 2: The more you trivialize the other faith as simply worshippers
43:12
Speaker 2: of stone and wood, or people who don't have a
43:14
Speaker 2: sophisticated spiritual understanding, that it's easier for you to say
43:17
Speaker 2: what we have to bring to the world. In fact,
43:19
Speaker 2: you're not doing anything about bringing it to the world.
43:21
Speaker 2: Other people struggle with what is Judaism's particularity, so they
43:24
Speaker 2: go out and do social work under the banner of tikun,
43:27
Speaker 2: which then raises the questions, was the difference if you
43:29
Speaker 2: do it under the banner of tikun or you don't
43:30
Speaker 2: do it under the banner of tikun. I think Judaism
43:33
Speaker 2: has a lot to bring, but it's grounded energetically, It's
43:37
Speaker 2: grounded in certain heritage of Sadikim and will ultimately come
43:40
Speaker 2: to light in the presence of Mashiah. It may not
43:43
Speaker 2: be because at this point, because it holds this or
43:45
Speaker 2: that opinion, simply because the diversity within Jewish faith and
43:50
Speaker 2: practice is so great that in order to make such
43:52
Speaker 2: a statement you would have to identify one stream and
43:54
Speaker 2: leave other streams out, So I think there have to
43:57
Speaker 2: be other categories I means of which we affirm Judaism's
44:00
Speaker 2: contribution to others. And my approach is one of mutual growth,
44:06
Speaker 2: which is why in my active life, not the theoretical life,
44:11
Speaker 2: I work on bringing people together, so they share, they learn,
44:14
Speaker 2: they call it a bit frendship, they grow spiritually, they
44:15
Speaker 2: take it back to their communities in a process where
44:18
Speaker 2: we all grow together through this particular project. Rather than
44:21
Speaker 2: we legitimate, we affirm or we recognize them. And the
44:25
Speaker 2: weakness of the Jewish model this I wrote in this
44:27
Speaker 2: essay for in this Cambridge handbook, is that it's too
44:31
Speaker 2: busy spending time recognizing as valid or not valid in
44:35
Speaker 2: other religions. So it sits in the position of judgment,
44:37
Speaker 2: and we will prefer or remove validity from another faith
44:42
Speaker 2: based on our criteria. And then some broad minded people
44:46
Speaker 2: try to find something positive. And that brings us to
44:48
Speaker 2: the topic of today's conversation, whether pluralism universality. And I
44:53
Speaker 2: believe that the alternative complement is to think of how
44:58
Speaker 2: we all grow together, how we all have to learn together,
45:00
Speaker 2: and how we all in humility approach approach God. The
45:03
Speaker 2: combination of an internally strong ego and sense of superiority,
45:08
Speaker 2: and then the lack of any follow up and approach
45:10
Speaker 2: to other faiths with any meaningful or the world with
45:13
Speaker 2: any meaningful program is a really bad one because then
45:16
Speaker 2: you sit in help. Many Jews sit ultimately in judgment
45:20
Speaker 2: and superiority in others, but rather than caring to uplift
45:24
Speaker 2: them either spiritually or spiritually or socially or morally, just
45:27
Speaker 2: do nothing about it. It's much better to be engaged
45:29
Speaker 2: in processes of growth and to have the humility that
45:31
Speaker 2: we all grow together, and to put aside the question
45:34
Speaker 2: of superiority, recognizing that our particularity comes across simply through
45:40
Speaker 2: our experience of God, and to the extent that God
45:43
Speaker 2: is with us in a special way than our particularity
45:46
Speaker 2: and special gifts come across, but they don't have to
45:49
Speaker 2: come across in the way that ultimately serves no one
45:52
Speaker 2: by simply affirming our greatness and then ignoring any interest
45:55
Speaker 2: in the other.
45:56
Speaker 1: Okay, there's an awful lot to go that I on'tually
45:58
Speaker 1: wanted to ask that you mentioned a line earlier which
46:00
Speaker 1: I'm very curious about. You were talking both about finding
46:04
Speaker 1: commonalities with other religions, but also, of course appreciating their differences.
46:08
Speaker 1: And to your mind, I mean universalistically oriented form of Judaism,
46:13
Speaker 1: let's say, out of those two possibilities, what is the
46:16
Speaker 1: what is the royal road? In other words, is a
46:19
Speaker 1: good Jewish universalist one who seeks to find what is
46:22
Speaker 1: similar between Judaism and other religions and celebrate that and
46:25
Speaker 1: develop that and say, listen, we all have sort of
46:28
Speaker 1: we're holding the same truth. Or is a Jewish universalism
46:31
Speaker 1: more appropriately finding the differences between Judaism and other religions
46:36
Speaker 1: and developing that, and you know, seeking to learn perhaps
46:41
Speaker 1: or to appreciate that which is dissimilar between Judaism and
46:44
Speaker 1: other religions. Why is it either or that's a fair question.
46:48
Speaker 1: I was wondering. If do both operate simultaneous, are they
46:52
Speaker 1: of equal weight? Or let's say, is one a better
46:56
Speaker 1: way of doing it or a more sure path towards success?
47:00
Speaker 1: I don't know how to phrase it, but in your mind,
47:02
Speaker 1: does one take precedence of the other.
47:05
Speaker 2: Ultimately, commonality has to take greater presidents because it motivates,
47:09
Speaker 2: It affirms the common ground of a common humanity and
47:13
Speaker 2: a common divinity, or a common spiritual quest that places
47:18
Speaker 2: people on the side of the good and not the
47:19
Speaker 2: side of the bad, because underlying all these distinctions, and
47:24
Speaker 2: here kabalistic thought is helpful and also in the ways
47:27
Speaker 2: it is unhelpful, in that underlying it all is this
47:31
Speaker 2: tension between good and evil. And if you see people
47:35
Speaker 2: as good on the side of God, then it opens
47:39
Speaker 2: you up to seeing them and recognize them, which is
47:41
Speaker 2: why in some of my works I shift the conversation
47:43
Speaker 2: from a dazra to the notion of same God. I
47:46
Speaker 2: have a book that basically calls same God, other God,
47:48
Speaker 2: which I try to reframe the question of adasa rah
47:51
Speaker 2: with strong impact of them a h the impact of Avedazaah.
47:56
Speaker 2: Not as are they legitimate? Are they worshiping another God?
47:59
Speaker 2: But can we recognize is the same God? Because if
48:01
Speaker 2: we can recognize the same God, that moves them into
48:03
Speaker 2: another camp, and then opportunities for recognizing the difference of
48:07
Speaker 2: how that same God is worshiped also come up, and
48:10
Speaker 2: they can become a source of enrichment and also a
48:12
Speaker 2: better self understanding, because all too often, in order to
48:15
Speaker 2: compare ourselves with the other, we eface differences within ourselves
48:19
Speaker 2: and resort to a very superficial self understanding. So I
48:24
Speaker 2: think I think it's both, but ultimately ultimately commonality. He
48:27
Speaker 2: has to win the day fair enough.
48:31
Speaker 1: And I suppose some analogous question goes as well as
48:35
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you know, of course, you do a
48:37
Speaker 1: lot of interfaith work, and you do it with while
48:40
Speaker 1: insisting or while preserving that's your the particularity of your
48:43
Speaker 1: own faith tradition. And exactly how is that achieved? Let's say,
48:53
Speaker 1: I mean, what are the steps or processes one takes
48:59
Speaker 1: to say, you know, I'm engaging in this, but yet
49:03
Speaker 1: there is a line or a boundary I can't cross
49:06
Speaker 1: that is a sort of I don't know, an assimilation
49:09
Speaker 1: or melting that I'm willing to undertake. And so where
49:13
Speaker 1: it does? What? And where and how does one draw
49:15
Speaker 1: those boundaries, let's say, and.
49:16
Speaker 2: Not rather you came to a summer school session and
49:18
Speaker 2: saw this in action, or came to a seminar, took
49:21
Speaker 2: part in activities, rather than trying in the abstract studio
49:24
Speaker 2: of a podcast to try and imagine theoretical lines that
49:28
Speaker 2: may exist, but they're not going to serve anyone. One
49:31
Speaker 2: has to jump into the water. I mean, you can
49:35
Speaker 2: forever practice swimming motions on ground, but you've got to
49:37
Speaker 2: get into water. So I'm going to convert this into
49:40
Speaker 2: invitation for you and for listeners to come and join
49:43
Speaker 2: our summer school program, which is now with difficulties here
49:46
Speaker 2: in this moving increasingly onto zoom or other things. And
49:50
Speaker 2: then these questions will take out a concrete reality, and
49:52
Speaker 2: then we can convene another time on your podcast and
49:54
Speaker 2: discuss the lessons you've learned and what comments I may
49:57
Speaker 2: have on those.
49:59
Speaker 1: Fair enough to that's a wonderful in limitation, thank you,
50:03
Speaker 1: I would like to take that out, I would say,
50:05
Speaker 1: I mean a final question. This is a question I
50:08
Speaker 1: asked a lot of my guests, except that will have
50:10
Speaker 1: you a little bit different in your case. Often ask
50:13
Speaker 1: my guests when we're analyzing specific thinker or specific movements,
50:18
Speaker 1: whether if they could sit down with that thinker or
50:22
Speaker 1: you know, or someone from that movement or someone from
50:24
Speaker 1: that time period they're studying, what would they ask them?
50:26
Speaker 1: And how would they what kind of questions would they
50:28
Speaker 1: engage in? And I suppose my question to you would be,
50:31
Speaker 1: you know, which of the thinkers in the Jewish past
50:33
Speaker 1: do you really see as your principal the principal trailblazer
50:38
Speaker 1: on the path that you're trying to follow. And if so,
50:42
Speaker 1: what would you wish that they had addressed or what
50:45
Speaker 1: would you wish that they had developed further? And you know,
50:49
Speaker 1: if you again, if you could sort of sit down
50:51
Speaker 1: with them for dinner, if you could press them on
50:52
Speaker 1: a certain question, what would it be and who would
50:54
Speaker 1: it be?
50:55
Speaker 2: Problem with my field is this very new and it
50:59
Speaker 2: owes to certain instrut circumstances on the second half of
51:02
Speaker 2: the twentieth century. The only trailblazer that I can really
51:05
Speaker 2: recognize is aj Heshel. Hashel has been a very strong
51:09
Speaker 2: person who made some trailblazer in this particular field, But
51:14
Speaker 2: I don't know that he would serve as my model
51:17
Speaker 2: in this particular sense. I would say that when I
51:21
Speaker 2: turned to models, I do not turn to people who
51:25
Speaker 2: took a stance on a topic. I turn to people
51:28
Speaker 2: who embody certain spiritual ideals as their entire way of life,
51:36
Speaker 2: people who I see as for me, the notion of
51:40
Speaker 2: Sadikim is very very central. In fact, you know when
51:43
Speaker 2: you said earlier were going to talk about asking someone
51:46
Speaker 2: the question. So in this museum we're designing, I'm planning
51:48
Speaker 2: and having a section where people if we can realize
51:51
Speaker 2: this technology, people can speak to let's say twelve figures
51:55
Speaker 2: from different religions whose corpus we're going to upload to
51:59
Speaker 2: AI and they can address their contemporary questions to them
52:02
Speaker 2: and see what the AI comes up with through an avatar.
52:05
Speaker 2: So I'm all in favor of asking people of old
52:08
Speaker 2: some particular questions in the form of a dialogue as
52:12
Speaker 2: a pedagogic means, and I hope we can incorporate that
52:15
Speaker 2: in the global house of friendship and hope. But if
52:19
Speaker 2: you asked me, I would say that what I would
52:23
Speaker 2: like is to learn not what this really reflects My
52:28
Speaker 2: response to you earlier when you wanted to come up
52:29
Speaker 2: with guidelines and theoretical principles and I said, you need
52:33
Speaker 2: to do the practice. So I would repeat that for myself.
52:36
Speaker 2: If I had to sit with someone, I wouldn't look
52:38
Speaker 2: for a question. I would look to emulate a way
52:40
Speaker 2: of being. I would want to see how does this
52:43
Speaker 2: person imbibe divinity to such fullness that it then translates
52:47
Speaker 2: into how that person addresses these issues. So when I
52:52
Speaker 2: if I had the RUSS to be with rough Cook,
52:55
Speaker 2: I would want to know better how he lives divinity
52:59
Speaker 2: and how that pacts his mind and his hard and
53:02
Speaker 2: his very being, and then that becomes digested in his
53:06
Speaker 2: response to a particular topics. So I want to go
53:08
Speaker 2: for something much deeper when I turn to people. Then
53:11
Speaker 2: what is your answer to this question? I'm really drawn
53:15
Speaker 2: to people who's very being would be something I desire
53:19
Speaker 2: to emulate and follow, and from that emulation to receive
53:22
Speaker 2: the source of spiritual inspiration for myself to be able
53:26
Speaker 2: to come up with the answers and approaches that are
53:30
Speaker 2: the particular mission that God has given me to realize
53:33
Speaker 2: in this life.
53:35
Speaker 1: Okay, that is certainly worthy of food for thoughts. And
53:40
Speaker 1: this has been a fascinating conversation. And I'm looking forward
53:42
Speaker 1: very much to getting my hands on a copy of
53:44
Speaker 1: your brand new book, on which you know is your
53:49
Speaker 1: one of your theological statements on the matter.
53:52
Speaker 2: And no, no, not on the matter. Actually I do,
53:55
Speaker 2: I do, I do in this book very little. This
53:57
Speaker 2: is a presentation of Judaism per se. It's not Judaism
54:00
Speaker 2: in relation to other religions. That book, as I said,
54:03
Speaker 2: that'll be my last book, probably we have God willing
54:05
Speaker 2: another twenty years to it.
54:07
Speaker 1: I see, okay, fine, I mean that's in which case
54:10
Speaker 1: I'm looking even forward even more to read this one.
54:15
Speaker 1: It's sort of well, okay, you know, in fact, let.
54:18
Speaker 2: Me ask you, right, I thought you were looking forward
54:19
Speaker 2: to living another twenty years, so you could read that
54:21
Speaker 2: book either way.
54:23
Speaker 1: Not too got to give me a stroke, actually not.
54:25
Speaker 1: Let me ask about this last book then, And sort
54:27
Speaker 1: of a final final question, which is that so you know,
54:31
Speaker 1: it's not a book about interfaith, but presumably it is.
54:36
Speaker 1: It is a reintroduction to Judaism that gives principles that
54:40
Speaker 1: underlie a potential fruitful interfaith engagement. Is that fair to say?
54:44
Speaker 2: I would echo my response to the dinner question in
54:49
Speaker 2: the same way that I would want to align myself
54:54
Speaker 2: with the spiritual depths of someone in order to then
55:00
Speaker 2: able to apply them to the topic at hand. I
55:03
Speaker 2: would hope that this book offers the depths of a
55:06
Speaker 2: certain Jewish vision, which then would equip people also to
55:11
Speaker 2: approach other topics, including how they approach other faiths, because
55:14
Speaker 2: it would open up certain depth dimensions in their understanding
55:17
Speaker 2: of Judaism. So it goes to the roots rather than
55:21
Speaker 2: trying to offers, you know, more specific formulae or positions
55:27
Speaker 2: that would allow people to approach other religions. There's remarks
55:33
Speaker 2: for someone whose life is inter faith, there's remarkably little
55:35
Speaker 2: of interfaith in this book, which may be the reason
55:38
Speaker 2: why it's my most important book.
55:41
Speaker 3: Fair enough, it also might be the reason why those
55:43
Speaker 3: who wouldn't pick up a book on interfaith or would
55:46
Speaker 3: be disinclined to do so, may very well pick up
55:49
Speaker 3: this book and be enriched to the point that they
55:51
Speaker 3: may see interfaith as a more worthwhile pursuit.
55:55
Speaker 2: Whether they see interfaith or not is not a direct
55:58
Speaker 2: outcome of the reading of the book. If their understanding
56:01
Speaker 2: of Judaism deepens.
56:02
Speaker 1: The right, Okay, that's that would definitely be an achievement
56:07
Speaker 1: in itself. Doctor Alan Gush and Gotsh Dean, thank you
56:10
Speaker 1: so very much for Johnny us today on the Podcast
56:13
Speaker 1: of Jewish Ideas. This has been a pleasure. I know
56:15
Speaker 1: our audience will be greatly enriched by this conversation and
56:18
Speaker 1: we look forward to seeing what you produce on this
56:20
Speaker 1: topic in the future.
56:21
Speaker 3: Thank you for Johnny As.
56:22
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining my summer school next year.
56:25
Speaker 1: Excellent. I look forward to it. This has been the
56:28
Speaker 1: Podcast of Jewish ideas by Tora in Motion, produced by
56:31
Speaker 1: Alisha Kellman and myself, JJ Kimbrie, Edited and mixed by
56:35
Speaker 1: Alisha Kelman. You can stay up to date by subscribing
56:38
Speaker 1: in your favorite podcast app. To support the more thoughtful
56:40
Speaker 1: Jewish content like this, please visit Torre in motion dot org.
56:43
Speaker 1: Slash donated